Collecting Cans, Bottles, and Scrap Metal

[Marijuanasaurus]

Last time i took my cans and bottles in to recycle, i got about 50 bucks. Its not much, but its a good source of income for gas/drug/food money. My friend told me his dad does the same thing, except he goes around to small businesses and collects their cans for them. Im thinking about going to the local Howies game shack, and my friends gym to collect their cans to recycle.

I have yet to make money off of scrap metal yet, but when i worked at toys r us, the store had barely been built, and we had to build all the racks, gondolas, and bays in the warehouse. We ended up with quite a bit of scrap metal which we just threw in the dumpster out back. I didnt end up collecting any of it, but im going to try to go to newly open stores to see what i can score from their dumpsters. Only thing is, i dont know whats the best scrap metal to collect.

Anybody know which metals i should look out for, and how much i can get off of it?

[Kwinnie Bogan]

You can sell them at water processing plants after fixing 3 pipe leaks around town.

[ayingerbrau]

There's a couple of gypsies near me that go round businesses undercutting peoples quotes for getting rid of scrap metal.

For example, a company I worked for had a warehouse full of unused racking, and people were quoting £1000+ to take it down and get rid of it.

The gypsies undercut everyones quotes and scrapped most of the metal themselves, I wouldn't be surprised if they made close to £1000 themselves. Rather than working for £15 an hour to take it down, they'd work for £5 an hour to take it down. Then scrap it all and make a shitload from that.

I've been to skips or "waste recycling centres" as they like to be called and seen the workers looking out for copper in the metal skip. My bet is they're making a couple of hundred a month just from odd bits of copper they find.

If you're really into it you could make it work.

[Travis Bickle]

catalytic converters, people steal them all the time here.

[Masked Stranger]

I work in a repair shop. And this big black ghetto lady always stops by in her f-150 at the place at the end of every day taking the scrap away. Were talking mufflers, clutches, even an entire v6 last week (it was shot) and whatever else we feel like giving her. She also visits other places, as when she stop by our shop, her bed is already filled with all sorts of shit. So she must be making some sort of money. Though she is kinda stupid. She admitted to throwing out cat converters thinking they were just mufflers.

[KeYLoW]

Copper always brings in money.

I suggest live power transformers. They have a lot of copper.

[Paco]

Copper always brings in money.

I suggest live power transformers. They have a lot of copper.

true, but now adays you have to fill out forms and all that BS stateing where you got the copper, etc.... to many assholes stealing copper piping :D

[KeYLoW]

true, but now adays you have to fill out forms and all that BS stateing where you got the copper, etc.... to many assholes stealing copper piping :DI haven't heard of that. Where are you from?

Its been a year since I've been to a scrap yard, but all I did was pull up, some mexicans took it out of the back of my truck to get weighed out, then they gave me cash.

[richardcomeout]

work in school as a janitor, they get pay high!! and you can collect cans.

[Paco]

I haven't heard of that. Where are you from?

Its been a year since I've been to a scrap yard, but all I did was pull up, some mexicans took it out of the back of my truck to get weighed out, then they gave me cash.

CT but idk all the facts, just heard about it from my friends mom :)

But it WAS a group of mexicans...

[eesakiwi]

Scrap metal was down a lot for a while, I think it went down August '08. Its gone back up a fair amount since then.

I scrap a lot of metal. Its in NZ$ & Kgs so its all weird compaired to US$& Lb's or British pounds.

I will take apart almost anything made from metal.
I pick up cans I see on the side of the road & theres a guy who finds them too & gives them to me in exchange for any large Beer bottles I find.
Theres also a shop that sells coke cans etc & I have a rubbish bag there for the emptys, I get NZ$5 for each (Large!) sack I get (they save by not having to put them out with their rubbish).

Any copper pipe I find I add to my pile of copper.
Theres a car wreckers close by & I go there at night & rip the wiring looms out & take them back home & cut the plugs off, strip the other tape/tubeing off & fill a sack with the plastic coated wire, then take that to a secret place & burn off all the plastic at night.
I know what I'm doing & theres no way you could burn off the plastic in a built up area.
Theres also best ways to burn off the plastic while saving as much metal as possible.
I used a old wire bed frame as a grate to put the wire on, I cover it with a sheet of roofing iron & build a fire under it to warm the wire, then light the plastic coated wire at one end so the smoke goes thru the fire & ignites again (less smoke, more flame)
As I said its in a area away from people & theres trees around & the place in under ground level so no one sees the flames.
The open area surrounded by trees dilutes the smoke then shealds it from the nearest people (traffic).
It burns for 10 mins +, then goes out, after that I take it home, spread it out on a sheet of iron & cut off all the left over plastic (not much) & then wash it with slightly soapy water to get the carbon & black stuff off.
Actually the proper black stuff is Copper oxide, so its not a problem to leave it in with the copper when you sell it.
I save it up & want to see if I can electroplate it back into copper. Theres about 20Kg of it in a bucket at the moment.
I will use old car battery sulphuric acid to do that. Its a intrest of mine to see if/how I can do it.

10Kg of looms makes 8Kg of cleaned plastic coated wire, which makes 6-7Kg of Copper.
Thats worth NZ$6 a Kg. or US$3.50Kg.
The scrapmetal dealers pay NZ$1 a Kg for looms right of of under the bonnet, all greasy & covered with plastic, I add value to it by doing all the rest.

I worked out I make about $5 a hour doing all this shit, less than 1/2 what I'd make working, & its dodgy, stealing looms (sorta, they are not going to get money from them anyway) then burning off the plastic (dodgy, end up with someone calling the Police of fire brigade, has happened, one of each! was OK & I found better ways of doing it)
But its all spending money, no tax to pay, comes in a lump sum.

I get under the bonnet where the motor was. Strip all the loom out. It normally runs around the front of the car past the headlights/indicators, past the fuel injection/wipers/carby etc, under the wheel well, thru the firewall, under the dash & across it, into the fuse box (don't forget the fuses!) into the steering wheel/ignation. dash etc, down past the doors & inside lighting & door switches, into the boot & arouns the rear lights/switches etc.
I use plyers, crowbar, garden snips to cut bunches of wires & loppers to get the big bunches of wire (ie cut at firewall & pull wire thru, start on other side again).
Screw drivers etc, you have to look for earths when you pull the looms thru, they get caught up on them, best to follow with your hands (cuts skin all the time!) find the offshoot & snip it.
As I do it in the dark I use a 'LED headlight' & switch it off when I don't need it.

Truck cabs are great, have done a few in complete darkness.

I use a hammer to smash the plastic around the heater core out & get the core.
Find that by figuring out where the two brass pipes come out in thru the firewall. Then go back inside & smash it all out sideways. They were worth NZ$3 or $4 each, now probably $3 at the most.
But if you do 10 cars, every bit adds up.
Use EYE protection, you only have two eyes & you need both of them.
We have public Healthcare so we don't have to pay for hospitals....

Under the bonnet theres still the Ali tubing from the air con & also the radiator core for it, under the dash theres another Ali core for air con.
Under the bonnet theres also the battery earth straps, because they are thick copper I slice off the insulation & put that aside.
I know you can get more for it (Bright copper is worth NZ$1 Kg extra?)
but if you sell it seperate & you only have , say 5 Kg, it can upset the weight & you don't get any extra,ie
10Kg @$5Kg + 3Kg @$6Kg = $68
BUT if each amount weighs 700gms each over the Kg,
you actually had 14Kg @ $5Kg = $70! see how?

I have a shitty 12Kg spring scale, great for weighing sacks of metal up to 15kg.
Over that I want bathroom scales to weigh it.
But I put a long pole thru the wall of the sack at the 1/2 way point & balance one end of the pole on something & put the scales at the other end & double what the weight on the scales is.
So I get about 20Kg of Ali in a coal sack (NZ$20+, was about NZ$30+ before it dropped.)
I'm putting aside all the brass clips of the looms, intend to burn off the little plastic thats on it & pour it into the copper radiators (They are a mix of Copper & Brass) & hammer over the hole to close it up.
I'll probably get another NZ$20-40 doing that. Worth it in the long run.
I will use a microwave door mesh to burn it out on, in the backyard, on a small fire.

Brass is worth about NZ$4Kg, so you get a sorta average between copper & brass prices for radiators.
Clean brass gets its own sack/bag.

Car batterys are worth NZ$0.30 cents Kg, a good car battery (300 cranking amps)is 15Kg, so its worth NZ$4.50 each, a few added up, add up...to $$

Stainless steel, if its shiney & hasn't rusted & you touch it to a magnet & it dosn't stick, its stainless steel, and you can get money for it.
Its non-magnetic because it has a high amount of Nickel in it, nickels worth money, nowhere as much as it was, & it hasn't went back up much (neither has Aluminium) but its still worth $.
You start to figure out what is non-magnetic by what its used for, anything thats hot & has corrosive stuff next to it is probably high nickel content.
Dishwashers & oven parts, specific parts mind you. Easy to figure out.

Copper again.
Electrical stuff has copper wire in it, the best thing is microwave ovens, they have a large transformer in them, also several small trannys.
Rip off the outer case & look at it, theres a large tranny, a small tranny, a electrical motor for the plate, maybe a electrical fan, maybe a electrical motor for the controls.
http://www.kellerstudio.de/repairfaq/sam/mwoven1.gif

Theres a metal box the houses the "Magnetron". Wow! Now you can use Magnetron in a sentance & impress everyone...
Theres plastic coated wire, rip all that out. Smash the small tranny out.
Bash the box (magnetron) out (pull it out the first time, so you can see whats its made from, there two very strong magnets you can get money for in there) I bash the ceramic bit with the two wires on the side, in to inwards into the galv box first, then bash it sidways to remove it.
Then I grab the loose galv box & pull it outwards, theres two thick copper wires that undo off the ceramic choke (little black rods) & you can bend the wire to break off the ceramic bit, then do the same to the other end to save the copper wire from it.
Then remove the thin galv disc on each end, then the two magnets, then the magnetron, theres some Ali fins stuck around it, like in this pic http://tuopeek.com/images/magnatron.jpg
Later you can fit the magnetron over a metal pipe & bash the magnetron (see, used the word a few times now, eh?) thru with a hammer to remove the Ali fins.
Later, save up a whole bunch & grind most of the stainless steel end of & peel it off using a long but sturdy metal pin (electric motor spindle) & clean up the end with the grinder again, they weigh 80gms each, the SS is Very sharp & I have the lifelong scars to prove it.
Thats that.

Most trannys have interlocking 'I's & 'E's. Microwave trannys don't.
Pull one out & look at it, there a thin weld down one side, bash at it with a cold chisel & it will break apart, rip back the stacked pile of 'I's.
Put the main part in a open bench vise with the bared end up & using a hammer & punch, punch the center part of the 'E' down & out of the copper coil.
The copper coil will fall off & theres two coils with insulation around them, rip off what you can, its OK to leave the varnish but get rid of most of the cardboard shit.(thats about 1 Kg of Copper there)

Theres a smaller copper coil with coloured material insulation around it, put that aside, its glass fibre insulation & won't burn off in the fire. I have a bunch of them aside, they can stay there.
You don't need to burn the 2 coils in the fire, just throw them in your copper sack as is.

The fan & plate motor,
http://www.pmcoppack.com/shop/images/product_images/FanMotor_660.JPG
http://www.partselect.com/assets/partimages/108321_1_M.jpg
depending on them, you maybe able to bash the coil & inner iron core out of the motor, Thats the above sort, pop it off & push the core out of it, or its the other sort
& you will need to cut thru one side of the copper coil with a hammer & old wood chisel (or use a meat clever with the hammer) cut thru the coil & pull the now loose copper wire out & chuck it in the sack (50gms copper)
The small timer motor, rip it off & pick off the backing plate, pick out the plastic gears & the next plate, pick out the copper coil with its plastic former out & give it a little bash & the plastic breaks & the fine, very nice looking, copper wire can go in your sack again (25gms. (thats 40 of them to the Kg, but it all adds up...).

Cut the clips off the wire & put the coated wire in with your 'to burn off wire'.

Electric motors, you get them every where, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, car parts etc.
Some of them have a magnesium casting on each end, for some reason magnesium is not worth as much as Aluminium, so I put it all in a sack & now its nearly full.
Otherwise I'd just put it in with the Ali as most Ali has magnesium in it anyway.

Its also got other stuff in there with Aluminium, like Copper for some reason, that Ali soon mounts up weight wise, the scrapmetal dealer was real happy when I brought in a load I stripped off a Architects drawing board, $50+!

Most of the time you can bash off one end (or unscrew it) of the motor, remove the inner shaft etc & then using a wood chisle cut off the loops on one end of the outer chassis of the motor.
Then pull the rest of the Loop out using a metal pin etc.
Some motors have copper coils on the armiture part, same deal.

If theres lots of varnish around the coils they might not come out, time to save them all up & then make a bonfire & chuck them in when the fire gets real hot.
I know, its shitty messy work, but the copper comes out easy, its soft now too, best to cut the end off the loops before the fire though, and use gloves...

Car engines & transmissions.
They are mostly Ali with steel parts inside.
Get a socket set & hammer & cold chisel & gloves & glasses & hearing protection.
Gloves for your hands, scars stay there, look bad all your life.
Glasses protect your eyes, hearing protection lets you bash the shit out of anything without a care in the world.
It won't take much to loose some of your hearing, bashing metal is the quickest way to do it.
With earmuffs (I like that word, Muffs... Harry Muff, Heary Muff, Earry Muff, Muff Muff..) you do save a LOT of time, its worth it , don't hold back.

You Have to get rid of all the steel parts, that means having drifts (or punches) to punch out the metal bits, I use motor armiture shafts, they come in a range of sizes, are cheap, if you loose one, who gives a shit.
Take every bolt out you can, studs (double ended bolts, two threads) screw on a nut, screw on another, tighten them up against each other, undo the bottom nut & the stud should unscrew too.
If it won't, give it a good Tap on the end with a hammer, when metals in close contact with other metal it can sorta weld together & a good tap may break that weld.
Or if its close to the edge of the casting, smash the casting away from the bolt/stud & it may then come loose.
Car motor heads are about 10Kg each, you need to drive the valve guide out with a punch, this is not easy untill you figure out the best way, ie, what direction is easyest, size punch etc.
Before that you need to get the valves out, harder than you thought & you can very easyely loose a EYE doing it.
Theres a special tool for valve compression, slip off the 'keepers', undo the compressor, easy.
Also some heads have a valve insert under the valve head, I use a cold chisel from the port outlet & push the valveseat out that way.

Pistons, have a steel ring cast inside them, so don't put them in with the Ali castings.

The engine block, theres a steel tube inside the bore, I take the engine apart & strip off all the bolts/studs etc, then I get my big angle grinder & cut a slot each side of the bore & smash it apart & knock the steel liner out.
You can use a axe, be carefull, its not that easy but it is dangerous.

Some car differentials have large Ali castings, easy but dirty work here.

[eesakiwi]

Hell, I went out a few days ago to look for scrapmetal, the place wheres theres cars I can rip the wiring looms out of.
Its been shitty weather (we are coming into a early winter here) rain & cloudy.
I got to the truck cab & ripped out the loom where it went under the cab.
I went into the pile, think 5 cars high, all crushed to door level.

Found a BMW, boy was that a easy car to scrap, the wiring looms are quite different from Jap stuff, theres no 'Tapping off a wire to get power', all the wires go to a plastic box & every end is connected to a strip of brass.
Theres no plastic around the looms, just a thin material strip thats easy to cut off, no brass clipons you have to cut off.

The heater core was Ali & smallish, the Aircon was Ali too (unusal) with tubes comming off it, they look real nice too.
I had to squeeze thru past the car, get into it under the crushed roof (theres no doors) & under the dash, on my back, bash the plastic out, rip the loom out while getting under the carpet & get the wire that goes the length of the car, then out the other side on my back & around under the bonnet (no motor) & cut out the rest of the loom & battery cables.

I did another two cars that were under the pile.
Its just like caving underground, can't move, stuck, twist a foot around & next thing you can move that little more & that gets you out of that area into another constriction.

There was some other cables I got from the outer area of the pile, some diesol car, shitty shitty stuff, all grease & mud & diesol, shitty stuff, but fat 12 V cables....
Using the garden loppers is a great help, so would be using the hand loppers but they fell apart in my hand last time I used them (bolt undid, fell out, can't find bits).
I also lost my cut down plyers for cutting wire & some other tool too.
I used my 5 LED light I brought for NZ$5, the elastic band fell off
(shitty cheap stuff eh? who cares if I loose it one day, far away..)
so I taped a magnet under it & it will work real well like that (did it before)

I got a bit less than a sack of cleaned wire, there was 5Kg of plastic around it, & some phatter wire I stripped the plastic off & some brass clips I don't weigh as well.
As there no coal sack to put it in I can't weight it yet.

Stripping wire is a bitch, I know people say "You get more for stripped wire, but either they have stolen the wire or have never actually done it...

I use a kitchen knife & a edge of a bolt on my bench to strip it.
I lay the wire to the right of the bolt & going directly away from me.
I grab it with my left hand & place my right hand & knife flat over the wire & pull back with my left hand & pull the wire towards me under the knife, the knife gets caught under the bolt head & acts as a steady for it.
My right hand shifts the knife so it cuts a strip of plastic off the top of the wire, I keep doing that untill theres a strip of plastic missing off one side of the full length of the wire.
I then pull the wire out of the rest of the plastic sheilding.
As the knife grabs into the copper it cuts the wire & then when I grab the wire again it drives little pins of wire into my left hand.
That fukkin hurts.
I end up with small lumps under my armpit from the lymph nodes because of to many infections in my arms/hands. shit.

After a whole lot of stripping wire I have now got a total of 5Kg of bright wire worth $1 Kg more than burnt off wire. Now you know why I don't like doing it... $5 & thats Kiwi $, worth US$ 60cents each.
"Wetback work" I hear you saying....

When I was stripping the wire it would start raining & so I'd have to run to the truck cab & take shelter in there freezing my arse off as water dripped all around me in the dark.

I crushed up some copper pipe I had from home too, nice weight there.
Theres some Ali I got from car coils & a starter motor, some starter motors have Ali windings, this one did, shit, coppers worth getting, but Ali from a diesol starter?, ugh.
The solenoid has a nice almost solid copper coil inside it, A coil has a niceish solid copper coil drenched in tranformer oil, bodies Ali normally, iron in there too.
Getting some more Ali cans today, I want to set up to burn off the brass wire plugs from looms, I may use a mesh & a small fire outside & roast the plastic off them, maybe a few Kg, but its there & all that shitty small stuff adds up.
To the amount I have to pay to get the copper to the scrapmetalers...

[eesakiwi]

I burnt off the 3 sacks of plastic coated copper wire, it was car wiring looms I has cut the plugs & plastic tape off.
Now I have 2 sacks, 2/3rds full of very heavy & sooty copperwire with the odd bit of unburnt crusty plastic stuck to it.
I have to pull it all out into a tray I have, clip off all the plastic bits & clips I missed, wash it with soapy water, rinse & rebag into the now cleaned plastic coal sacks I used before.
The black charcol sooty shit on the wire is very acidic or something, it really stings your hands where there are small cuts etc. Its also slightly wetish, weird except..
I found out that by burning the plastic it releases Benzene (Cancerish poison) lead, antomy (sp?) & other 'bad for you shit'.
Well I knew not to breathe the smoke in........

I had to make up another 'burning off' setup. The last one dissapeared into the long grass & I can't find it now..
What I used was some galv mesh fencing & a peice of sheetmetal (normally I'd use a peice of corrigated sheet roofing metal) & the outside casing off a old computer.
The sheetmetal was put down & the comp cases were put at each end & the flattened out fencing wire placed on that.
I setup a small fire using some dry sticks & fuel soaked sawdust in one case & put 1/5th of the wire in a sheet over the full length of the fencing.
The fire heats up the wire & then starts burning the plastic off, the fire under it keeps it going & the heat in the wire helps you to burn off the small bits of plastic that don't get burnt off in the first place.
Once the plastics caught fire it flares up in a 6 foot high flames.
I had to turn the wire over a bit so air can get in there & to expose the unburnt plastic to the flames.
I did find I should have put the fire in the centre, between the cases & placed the wire at one end & then as the wire burnt off, pulled the wire out the other side so it could get air & revel the unburnt plastic, while still hot enough to burn the leftover plastic off.

The copper cools down pretty quickly, you want to burn off all the plastic as quicky as possible & then to cool it down quickly too.
While getting all the plastic exposed to the flame & with enough movement to drop the ash off the wire.

That way the wires cleanish, without shit on it & the copper doesn't oxidise much (yeald killer). I used a length of conduit tubing with a slight hook in the end of it as a poker/puller. A metal handled small rake works best though.

I also lost my 'headlight' & my best snippers while getting the wiring looms, bugger, the headlight I taped a peice of broken magnet to its base soI could stick it to something metal while using both hands & the light. The magnet should have been a full circle, not the semicircle broken bit I used. My snipper fell out of my pocket while I lent over, they fell into a 4 car deep hole thats about 18 inches or less wide.
Weird, I had some trouble getting them out of my pocket & next thing they fall out.
Scrapmetals like that, you use a few minutes of all your energy moving something, only to then see it roll uphill back to where it came from...

I found a washing Machine (1Kg copper +, is a 'smartdrive' motor, they have plenty of uses & a bunch of Ali strips (a few Kg) in different areas & when I went back they were both gone.
The one thing with scrapmetal is that 'when you find it, jump on it as it won't be there when you go back'.
Today I found a microwave oven & shifted it to another area, where hopefully it will stay, I'll get the copper etc & dump the chassis in a scrapmetal bin nearby... Hopefully.

Car starter motors, have done a few, easyish, but dirty.
Theres a copper coil in the solenoid & copper wire in the casing & flat copperwire inside the armiture. Theres Ali casting on one end of it too.
Normall theres 2 bolts holding the solenoid on, undo them, undo the two bolts holding the cableing on, the bolts are copper, check the washers & nuts too with a magnet, they might be copper.
Once the solenoids loose, there a fork thing holding the two bits together, twist the solenoid & it shold come off the starter.
The bash the black plastic (bakelite) apart with a hammer (use safty glasses & earmuffs), the two copper bolts will fall out, extract the plastic disk with a screwdriver to expose the metal disc, extract that, its not easy & last time I had to peel the casing away from the disc to get to the disc, theres a easyer way, I just don't know how at the moment.
The solenoid coil will then fall out, smash the plastic former & pull the wire off as a coil.

The starter, theres two small cross head screws on the back end, they are normall stuck in there hard. I don't have the time to clean them or the nice screwdriver to undoo them.
So I give each screwhead a good tap with a hammer, that loosens the screw a bit & flattens the screw head a bit, no I place my shitty screwdriver in the crolss & give it head a tap with the hammer, that way the screwdrivers now got a good 'Bite' into the screwhead, & undo the long screws.
The cap on the end falls off & the casing comes apart from the ali casting, the armiture sometimes stays in there because of the brushes, smack it out.
Pop the brass bearing (ball shape) out of the cap & put aside, do the same with the one (tube shape) in the Ali casting.
The casing, look at it, theres two sorts, around the outside you will see 4 spots, if they are screw heads, great! If they are welds, not so great..
For screw heads, clean the dirt out & use a vise & impact hammer to undo the screws, or use a hammer & cold chisle to undo the screw a bit & once it moves, use a screwdriver, its loose & easy now.
The inside plates will drop out along with the (hopefully Copper) coils around them.
They are covered with a insulating material & a thin paper strip between the coils.
Rip the wire away from the outside of each coil to part the material & then rip the material off the coils. Put the Copper aside.

[eesakiwi]

Damn, I now find that this part didn't get saved when I went to post it..

Casing,
If theres spot welds, you won't be able to remover the inner steel bits & now you have to unwind the coil iside the case.
Check if its Ali wire, if it is, don't bother. If its Copper, push the wire thru the casing & rip the outer fabric insulation, now unwind it past the end of the steel former & pull it back thru the casing, do this a bunch of times & you will remove the copper strip, put it aside.

The armiture,
Most seem to have the Copper wire embedded inside varnish insulation, you can't pull it thru. I have put these aside & one day will chuck them into a bonfire to burn the varnish off & then will chisle the Copper loops off one end then try & pull the wire out thru the other end.
The last one I did, I found I could pull the wire out, I had to smash the bakelite under where the brush contacts are, then grab each wire in turn & pull it off the armiture, then go round in turn again to pull out the next layer of Copper wire, do that four times & it removed the wire, bitch of a time. Put it aside.

That Copper Armiture wire, Solenoid, Bolts, Windings, all added up to 750gms of Copper.
Thats NZ$4.50 or US$2.60? plus a little Ali..
It all adds up, if you have a bunch of cars to strip, save the starter motors up & do them all at one time, you get on a roll then.

Need a bench, Vise, Cold chisel, Screwdrivers (impact one if you have one), Hammer, the odd punch (armiture of motor), Safety glasses & Definatly Earmuffs otherwise you stuff your ears (it WILL!) & you get to 'Zone in' & not get distracted while not giving a care to how much you bash something.

[eesakiwi]

I pulled another microwave apart & got 125 gms of Copper from the little transformer & the fan motor, I can't weigh the actual large thrannys copper as my scale won't go up that far, but I consider it to be 1Kg of copper.
The 125gms + the magnatron @ 80gms Copper weighs 200 gms + 1Kg.
Theres wire too, but such a small amount.

I burnt off that wire & the still plastic coated wire that didn't get burnt off a few days ago.
I also burnt off the plastic from the 4 litres of brass metal clips I cut off the wiring looms.
I used a microwave I had taken everything off from, stabbed holes in it back, turned up up door top, put door mesh over it & lit fire in, put clips on mesh, too much smoke, smoked out everythingm glad no one was up at 3 am that morning as they woulda called the fire trucks or something, not gonna do it that way again....

I now relise that the brass wont oxidise as much as I thought & that it would be OK to just put the clips into the firewood in the fire I use to burn off the plastic coated wire, also everything smells of burnt shit around the house now...

I had to go thru the sacks of burnt off wire to clip the still plastic coated wire out.
Then I got the watering can, added some liquid soap & some water & stirred it up.
I sprayed some of that over the burnt off wire, in a large Ali tray, over the guttering.

Then I picked it up with wet gloved hands & ripped it apart & stirred it around & just kept it moving so all the carbony plastic shit fell off the copper wire.
Then I used the garden hose to spray the copper oxide off the wire.
That gets it back to a sorta goldish color & is now good for selling.

The plastic shit floats & is seived off the water thats left in the tray (actually I poured the dirty water into a bucket first.)
I let it sit & use the topish cleanish water for the next wash.
I then sieve the copper wire from the bottom of the bucket & chuck it into the copper wire.

The black copper oxide. I will add sulphuric acid & HCL to it one day & electroplate the copper out of it, Its my plan to make up a wind generator & use a enviromental way of regained the copper weight again.
I have 20L bucket full of Copper oxide & assioated other shit, Lead, nickel, gold & silver....

From over 5 or 6 sacks of looms, I got
3 sacks of cleaned plastic coated wire, from that I got
2X 3/4 fulled sacks f burnt wire, from that I got
2/3rds of a sack of cleaned wire thats been squashed into a sack.
By squashed, I mean I lifted up the sack & dumped it on concrete & it suddenly all crushes down in a very solidish lump.
Its also so solid I can't lift it now & have to use a trolly thing to move it.
With that, along with the other metal I have (3 1/2 sacks of Ali, small sack of copper pipe, wire, solids & tubing) 1/2 sack of radiators & wireing loom clips, shopping bag of brass (4 - 5 Kg) 1/3 rd sack of stainless steel, 5 very large plastic bags of Ali cans, I'll see what I get for it.

[Junior Jacon Jeese Jurger]

http://i44.tinypic.com/28sscd2.jpg

[eesakiwi]

Well I got some extra Ali, very large pistons, some other motors (Copper) some Ali hotplates from second hand stores waste bins & any other stuff I could find about.
So I got all that together, sacked it up for;

3 1/2 sacks of Ali castings, extrusion, radiators etc.
1 large box of car heater cores (under dash)
1 large sack 2/3rds full of squashed soft Copper wire (burnt off) 85Kg all up
1 small sack of crushed copper pipe & all the wire I got of motors & transformers etc.
1 Shopping bag of brass.
1/2 sack of Stainless steel.
5 huge plastic bags of Ali cans 26Kg
2 car batterys @ $3 each.

All up I got over NZ$750,
I took off $25 (Petrol money @ NZ$1.64 Litre) for the guy whos trailer & car I used (took it up too 'Full')
I will add in the $ values of each metal later on.
Our NZ$ is worth US$0.61 cents at the moment

Happy? yup, I can go do stuff now, get some more clothes, work on the house, buy food, travel, start finding other metal.
I might just go full on with just the copper again now. Its out there..

[eesakiwi]

Hmm, looks like I'm still doing the same thing.
but with a 40mm (or 1.57inch) gouge on my arm...
We have public Healthcare so we don't have to pay for hospitals...

Bumping